Faraday pursed his lips. "The Qanska have made us an offer," he said. "We believe it would be possible for a human to... well, to put it bluntly, to become a Qanska."

Raimey played the words over again in his mind, just to see if he'd actually heard them right. "And how exactly would this miracle of rebirth happen?" he asked.

"Actually, in exactly that way," Faraday said. "The human volunteer would be inserted into the womb of a pregnant female Qanska, where he would be partially absorbed into the fetus and then

'born' into a Qanskan body."

"What about physiology conflicts?" Raimey asked, the very outrageousness of the idea somehow allowing him to discuss it calmly. Surely Faraday wasn't serious about this. "Qanskan biochemistry can't possibly be compatible with ours."

"It's not," Faraday conceded. "The volunteer would start out as something of a hybrid: a human brain and mostly artificial spinal cord melded into a Qanskan body. There would also be a custom-made system of bioengineered organs that would synthesize nutrients from the Jovian atmosphere to support that part. Over time, the human elements would be replaced atom by atom, cell by cell, with the Qanskan equivalents, much the same way as wood petrification occurs. At that point the nutrient organs would atrophy, and the volunteer would be a true Qanska, only with his original human personality and memories."

"And how long exactly do they expect this petrification to take?" Raimey asked with a touch of sarcasm. "A thousand years? Ten thousand? Most of the bioengineered organs I've ever heard of have about the shelf life of fresh fruit."

"Oh, they're a bit better than that," Faraday assured him. "Especially state-of-the-art military versions."

Raimey frowned. "Are you saying this would be a Sol/Guard project?"

"Not at all," Faraday assured him. "It would be supported by both Sol/Guard and SkyLight, of course, but it would be under the direct control of the Five Hundred."